Daring Filipino director Lav Diaz brings his movie house of pain to Berlin this week, shooting for the top prize with an eight-hour epic testing human patience and endurance.
Diaz weaves the rich revolutionary history and mythology of his impoverished homeland in A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, the longest film ever to compete at the Berlinale, but still three hours shorter than his longest work.
“My principle is, the filmmaker shouldn’t struggle by himself…The viewer must struggle with me. Let’s experience this thing together and be immersed in this universe,” the 57-year-old Diaz told AFP in Manila before he left for Berlin.
Festival organizers have inserted one interval into the epic, but Diaz is relaxed about how audiences will cope.
“I understand the demands on the body, you need to defecate and urinate,” he says.
“You’re free. You can go home and fuck your wife or marry your girlfriend, you come back the film is still rolling. It’s about life. Ultimately, cinema is about life itself.”
Lullaby chronicles the futile search by Gregoria de Jesus — one of the few women leaders of the Philippine resistance against Spain — for the body of her husband, Andres Bonifacio, who was executed on a mountain by a rival faction of the rebellion.
Diaz weaves into the narrative the legend of the Filipino Hercules, who is perpetually holding the edges of two mountains to keep them from crashing into each other, and also the Tikbalang, a cigar-puffing monster with the head of a horse and the body of a man.
Another strand in the black and white movie is a retelling of El Filibusterismo, a politically charged novel written during the Spanish period by the country’s national hero, Jose Rizal, to rouse nationalist spirit.
“I combined all these threads, and when you view the film, it is about the search for the Filipino soul,” Diaz said.
Soul cinema
Diaz has won numerous international and local awards. One of his most recent works, the four-hour-long Norte, the End of History, was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
This year, a seven-member jury headed by three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep will select the winner of the Golden Bear, Berlinale’s top honor.
But Diaz said he was not doing films to win awards or make money, but rather to help his countrymen find their national identity after centuries of colonization by Spain and the United States, and more recently, a brutal dictatorship.
“Until now, we’re searching for that soul. I don’t want to make films for the market, I want to contribute to my country,” Diaz said.
Four metallic best picture trophies from the Filipino Critics’ Guild gather dust on his apartment shelf, beside a worn suitcase that has accompanied him on his many travels.
Diaz, admitted his movies were “so long nobody would buy them” but added, “I am freeing cinema. My films are not long, they are free. I am not part of convention anymore.”
He recalled a one-hour long scene in his 2006 film Heremias, where the entire shot followed three men getting high while they plot the rape of a woman.
“It was my vision of hell… It questioned God, if you really are God, why did you let these demons rape this beautiful woman?” he said.
Child of war
Diaz said his filmmaking perspective was greatly influenced by his tumultuous childhood, growing up in the conflict-wracked southern town of DatuPaglas.
His parents, both public school teachers, uprooted themselves from the peaceful north to teach children in war zones how to read and write. He fondly calls them “socialists”.
As a child in the 1960s, Diaz said he and his father would take a bus to the city to spend the entire weekend watching films by Fernando Poe Jr., considered thePhilippines’ John Wayne.
However, when their house was razed to the ground duringa crossfire between Muslim rebels and Christian militia groups, the family moved to a safe enclave while Diaz moved to Manila to study economics.
Diaz worked as a waiter, a book salesman and a petrol pump attendant after college to support his wife and three children, but eventually pursued cinema, his first love.
He started with low-budget skin flicks, including one about a woman who sleepwalks in the nude, before garnering critical acclaim.
“I am a film addict. I love all kinds of cinema,” he said.
While history and social injustice are running themes in his films, Diaz said the inspiration to start a project could strike anywhere.
A trip to the national library in 1997 spawned Lullaby, after he stumbled upon a decaying handwritten note from Gregoria de Jesus, describing her 30-day search in the mountains.
“I had an epiphany. I told myself: I have to make this film,” he said.
And the inspiration for his next opus could literally be just outside his window.
“You see that girl?” he said pointing to a beggar walking in front of a gleaming shopping mall.
“Why is she poor? Why does society allow her to be poor?”
★★★★★
Muslim Filipinos for Grace and Chiz
A group of Muslim Filipinos endorsed the candidacy of Senators Grace Poe and Francis “Chiz” Escudero for presidency and vice presidency, respectively.
The endorsement of the Muslim Movement for Grace –Chiz (MMGC) moved Poe as she recalls her father’s affection for the Muslims of Mindanao.
“Tuwing ako’y humaharap sa ating mga kababayang Muslim, palagi akong sentimental sapagkat hindi naman po kaila sa inyo kung gaano kayo minahal ng aking ama,” Grace told members of MMGC.
“Minahal kayo ng tatay ko at bilib siya sa inyong tapang at pagmamahal sa inyo ng bahay at sa inyong kultura,”added Poe.
Grace enumerated the movies his father did about Muslims like Perlas ng Silangan, Muslim Magnum 357, Kahit Butas ng Karayom Papasukin Ko among others.
“Palagi niyang binibigyan ng halaga ang dignidad, kabuhayan, at kultura ng mga taga-Mindanao lalong-lalo na ang mga Muslim,” Grace said.
Poe promises to ensure peace in Muslim Mindano and give Muslims more opportunities for a better life.
“Dapat maglagay din tayo ng Malacañang sa Mindanao. Bakit hindi? Hindi kailangang marangya, basta lamang mayroong kulturang Mindanao na makikita mo. Na ang bawat isa sa inyo ay magsasabi, ‘Ay ang pangulong Pilipinas ay pangulo rin namin, at pinaglalaban kami,’” Grace said.
“Alam mo kelangan gawin ko rin iyon dahil kapag nanalo ako at hindi ko tinulungan ang Mindanao ay baka multuhin ako ng tatay ko,” said FPJ’s daughter.
★★★★★
Unusual experiments in ‘i-Bilib’
Have you seen floating things on the air? Yes, things that are floating and turning around. Those are what the i-Bilibgang will show you in the classic levitator experiment that is really exciting.
And what is more exciting? It’s the silver egg experiment. I-Bilbers call it super egg-citing, indeed.
Janine will serve fresh fruits that are nice to look at. She will teach how that is achieved.
Watch James and Roadfill as they tell us some sweet trivia about honey. They will also find out how the honeybees produce this sweet wonder of nature.
Ball stop with high speed is what the guys fromdiscover science will show us. Find out how they’d explain a ball stops bouncing or moves forward or backward.
Those are the few things i-Bilib with Chris Tiu offers viewers every Sunday morning on GMA7.